Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[Simonsloth]

Metal gear solid V may well be my perfect desert island game. The plot, storytelling and overall pacing are the worst in the series history but the gameplay is head and shoulders above the previous entries. The meta game of base development, combat deployment, challenges and PF leagues is so deliciously moreish that I couldn’t help but devote unreasonable amounts of time to tweaking mother base between missions. Often I’d leave the game running for hours on end to complete some of the combat deployment missions. The core gameplay itself is incredible and the manner in which a mission can be completed is limited only by one’s imagination. Launching a Fulton grenade from D-Walker at an insane distance to extract the target, deploying decoys in a breadcrumb-like trial to lure a target away from safety or launching yourself out of a cardboard box from the roof above an unsuspecting guard. For these reasons I’d place the game closer to the recent hitman entries than the rest of the metal gear solid series.

However it’s not the game I hoped it would be. I wish they had delivered a tight story mode with a few sandbox type missions sprinkled throughout and then at the end said go and play rather than create the bloated experience they did. I barely ever used Quiet so to me she was someone I heard about in the audiotapes whilst I bonded with my buddy d-dog. Her story beats were therefore lost on me as were a lot of the secondary characters.

My game clock is at almost 1000 hours. The characters and plot have faded but my adventures with venom snake will continue into the next thousand. Once I’ve developed all those weapons, expanded my base to its maximum I’ll probably stop but it might keep pulling me back in for one more go. A huge chunk of the game requires an internet connection so when they switch the servers off it may be impossible to continue. One would hope they would adjust the development costs of the higher level equipment but I doubt it. Let’s hope my desert island has the internet.

3WR:
Tactical Espionage Perfection

[Abesloincloth]

The Metal Gear series tells the story of a maverick Japanese computer game developer and his slow descent into madness. Famous for its equally daft and mostly impressive boss fights, sometimes groundbreaking stealth gameplay and its beloved by all codec calls and cutscenes, there’s no denying the impact and influence this series has had on the industry and players.
Metal Gear Solid V trimmed away most of the aforementioned features. No more staring at almost static codec call screens, no more fat blokes on roller skates or bee men, severely reduced exposition videos and unfortunately (to me anyway) no more David Hayter.

All of this initially had me expecting the worst, “it’s just another generic open world game now” I cried into the ether. However, Ground Zeroes’ short but intense preview left me feeling equally optimistic about the Phantom Pain, and silly for doubting Hideo Kojima’s mad genius.

The story is your typical Kojima nonsense that gets you thinking, usually “What is going on? Why is that woman writhing around in a cage while we all watch?(because Kojima is a creep) Who set that horse on fire? Why is nobody else concerned by any of this?” The cutscenes are generally much shorter than previous games in the series with optional cassette tapes now containing a decent amount of backstory, and more detailed explanations of events occuring in the main plot line. Some of these tapes also serve as a kind of replacement for some of the more casual codec conversations from older titles.
The story isn’t something I totally understand, I’ve always been more into the gameplay in this series.

I think the gameplay is incredible, many games brag about letting you do things your way but this is the first I’ve played where it actually feels true. You can load up with a silent tranq rifle and pick your way through missions from a cowardly distance with your dog keeping guard, ride in on the back of your miniature flamethrower/minigun/rocket equipped metal gear or go in with nothing but a water pistol, a pair of green trousers and a horse. All of it fun and almost always a viable option as the game rarely funnels you down a particular path to complete a mission.

This game is a near perfect stealth game to my tastes, and definitely still feels like Metal Gear despite its changes and missing or reduced series staples.
The sneaking and general handling of Snake feels really solid (ha) and is easily the best in the series. I rarely felt cheated by the AI when I got spotted due to the consistent “rules” the game has for who can see you/hear you based on your actions, and doesn’t commit the same sins of some other stealth games where being spotted by a single guard somehow alerts everyone else in the area to your EXACT location despite you cracking them over the head before they’ve even had chance to call it in. In my opinion these rules are what make or break the experience in stealth games and this game really feels like the developers understood that.

Weapons and gadgets are all great fun to use too, and the initially frustrating encounters with the Skull Unit and other bosses eventually give you the opportunity to test out some of the games bigger and louder weapons later in the game, once you’ve attached enough shipping containers and unconscious blokes to balloons to make them for you of course.
I enjoyed the tense but short fight against the Man On Fire and a tiny Psycho Mantis, but the Sahelanthropus battle really stuck with me and filled me with dread with that giant creepy mech looming over Snake with a sinister bug eyed stare and Barry Gibb riding an elephant scream.

The open world is mostly fun to navigate via cars, cargo trucks, Walker Gear, D-Horse and helicopter though it’s bases and guard posts aren’t nearly as fleshed out as Ground Zeroes’ Camp Omega.

It still has some flaws though and it definitely feels a little bit unfinished in places, “Snake” barely says a word (though this can be explained away by the ending), the side missions are extremely repetetive and seemingly never ending and the world could feel a bit empty sometimes when I wasn’t doing story missions. The spoiler riddled opening credits and chopper ride combo at the start of every single main mission gets extremely annoying after the second time you’ve endured it. I even started to miss the old codec calls after a while, and despite the fact that I now commanded a military base containing my very own army of sycophants I’d never felt lonelier in a Metal Gear game. It seemed like the funny codec conversations and support characters had been replaced by Ocelot and Miller informing me I could destroy generators to turn the lights off, and the iDroid voice over telling me she’d spotted a sandstorm or an enemy patrol over and over and over and over and over again.
I also found the “romantic”/whatever the hell subplot between Snake and Quiet extremely weird and out of place and it felt like Kojima let the fifteen year old work experience boy write it. In fact almost every time Quiet was shown on screen the camera seemed to linger on her arse and chest and her whole characterisation in general was quite childish and left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. Grow up, Kojima.

This is a game I’m still sinking time into after nearly four years (200+ hours between PS4 and PC) and many other great game releases since and I find it hard to put into words how much I love it. It genuinely makes me a bit sad that we’ll likely never get to play another legitimate Metal Gear again.
Thank you Kojima you absolute nut case.

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